Takes an ocean not to break
by VervainAndRoses
Summary: It's not an easy road that's led them here.


She looks up at the fireflies that night, his arms around her, the emptiness not even his warmth can stave off taking up residence in her chest- a cold, solid thing.

Even so, time passes.

She starts to heal, they both do. Some days it feels like they have to, there is no other choice –so many people depend on them both that neither can let themselves be crushed. So they become stronger, but don't stop leaning on each other; and eventually she welcomes every new day again, instead of resenting it as another one their child did not get to see.

She's scared when he tells him the next time. She's not filled with joy and excitement when she utters the words, but fear and a dread that things will go wrong once more. Only a few months have passed since the miscarriage and she still feels the pain in her heart, as poignant as when it happened, if not less raw.

He doesn't pick her up or spin her around this time, not when he sees her face. But his smile is so bright and blinding like the sun, that she cant help it when her own lips lift up in an earnest smile.

He holds her so close she can barely breathe, whispering in her hair, over and over.

"_Everything will be all right, you'll be all right, and our child will be beautiful_..."

The babe comes away so easily this time that she hardly feels it at first. She goes to sleep a bit uncomfortable, Francis arms protectively wrapped around her, and wakes up in blood and pain. The cream colored sheets are soaked with it around her legs, and her stomach cramps so painfully she cries out as she doubles over, waking Francis at once.

"Mary, what is it?!" he asks her, alarmed; but he notices right away. "Guards! Guards!" He yells, nearly drowning out the sound of her crying, now that she realizes what's happening. "Send for the physician, now!" Francis yells.

"Mary! Mary, look at me, please," he begs, his hand on her cheek. He's terrified, he's never been so scared before in his life.

"It's happening- again," she gasps as she turns to look at him, her hands clutching her belly as if to keep the life from spilling from her. "God," she doubles over again, and he manages to hold her hand, which she clutches like a lifeline.

"You're going to be all right," he says, desperately brushing away her sweaty hair and praying that the physician gets here, because he can't lose her, that he would not survive.

When the physician, looking bewildered and hardly dressed, finally enters the room, Mary's eyes are closed and her head lies on his folded legs; she is so pale he'd be shaking her if it wasn't for the steady rise and fall of her chest, though she's not asleep. Every now and then she'll let out a sob, or struggle to keep it in, and he'll feel his heart crack a bit more in his chest.

"Mary, he's here," he tells her carefully, but she doesn't move at all.

"I don't need him," is her answer.

He picks her up then, gingerly, and carries her over to a chaise. Where at once the physician sits in front of her and asks a few questions, most of which he does not understand –he just holds her.

"There's nothing left to do but let nature run its course now. I'm sorry, your majesty. I could give you something to help with the pain, or to help you sleep but-"

"I understand," she says, and her voice is so different it startles him. "Please leave."

"Mary?" he asks, but she won't meet his eyes. And then her maids are there, changing the sheets of the bed and asking him to leave so they can change her out of her stained nightgown. He wants to protest, to say that he is her husband; but something in her eyes makes him leave the room.

Once he comes back inside, their bed has new linens; and she lies in her side, curled into herself and looking so young it brings a pang to his chest because she is, and she doesn't deserve this. Neither of them do.

"Our child," she moans quietly when he gets into the clean bed, and he takes her weeping form into his arms. He feels his own sob build up in his chest, but keeps it in for her sake, instead looking around their now quiet room. It's like nothing has changed at all, except she feels impossibly colder to the touch.

It takes her days to stop bleeding, even longer to stop crying.

It's different this time, its not a sad occurrence that they can overcome, but rather a sentence that she's been given, that drags her down because years down the line there will be no children's laughter and no heirs- only pain and pity. And she thinks, she_ knows_, it would be better if she couldn't fall pregnant at all. If she was completely barren and could never hold a child within her, because the knowledge that they create a life together and then it's ripped away kills her every day, makes her come undone like the fragile threads on a piece of fabric.

Its one of those days she asks her ladies not to bother her, where she has nothing to do and no one to meet- and after a while even the servants and maids know not to enter the chambers of the recluse Queen.

She notices when he comes in, she always does. He carries with him a certain hope she lacks now, even amongst his own sadness; a pull that promises her if she gives in and lets them grieve together, she would be so much better….if only she could give in.

He kneels down in front of her, his hands on her knees; tries to look up at her face but she moves it to the side. His hand was firm on her chin as he forced her to look down at him, to meet his eyes after nearly a month of silence.

"It was my child too," he whispers to her, his eyes shining and his voice cracking.

She swallows her tears as they flood her eyes and looks up to the ceiling.

"Mary," his hand is gentle on her thigh, "I'm begging you, don't push me away anymore. Talk to me,_ please_.

We've already lost him, _them_- I…I can't lose you too."

She doesn't answer him, electing instead to stare resolutely out of the window, keep herself together the only way she knows how now. If she gave in and talked to him before she fell strong enough she would cry her heart out, and once the tears started she wasn't sure they could ever stop. She had always felt she could drown in his eyes, but she'd never subject him to seeing it happen in his arms.

He seemed to nod to himself, to stand up a little taller, she felt him pull away from her even as he leaned down kiss her forehead gently, controlled strength behind every one of his moves.

When she hears the door slam closed after him, a sob leaves her mouth without her permission.

She was angry, at herself, at him, perhaps at the truth in his words.

She was heartbroken, but it was a different sort. She'd thought she knew pain, when she broke his heart to save him or when she thought he might be dead in battle-but that was a different sort of pain. Quiet, retired, somehow. Cold. She felt her limbs grow heavy and numb and she pushed the pain away from herself. She felt like a marble statue, cold and unfeeling, forever hiding the smallest of cracks

But this, this heartbreak was different. It was hot and angry and raw. It peeled at her skin until she could imagine her insides showing, pounding with pain.

If before she'd felt her heart crack, now she felt she jagged edges of it slicing her chest open, not allowing her a single peaceful breath.

She can't stand to see her ladies' pitying looks, or Francis sorrow every time he looks at her. So she finds someone else.

Conde is always there, and he becomes a friend she can trust; a confidant, even. He doesn't treat her like she's made of glass. They joke around, they drink. Sometimes she even stops feeling sad and guilty.

"I saw you with my cousin today." Francis tells her one night, and she doesn't like the way he says cousin instead of Louis, as if he was reinforcing the family ties between them, like he once said my brother and not Bash.

"Louis is a good friend to us," she answers simply.

"He was holding you, Mary-"

"He is going away for some weeks, I was merely saying goodbye," she tells him, and her voice raises then almost without her consent. "What are you _implying_?"

"Nothing! But you must know the reputation he has with women, married woman at that," he moves his hands, gesticulating wildly, the barely restrained anger and betrayal showing through. "There are rumors in the castle already-"

"And what do you care about rumors? I hear rumors about me every day, and indiscretions behind my husband's back aren't the most hurtful ones!" she exclaims_._

_I hear the King pins her down every night and tries to get a child into her but she's as barren as the old Queen of Aragon,_the maids whispered amongst themselves one morning, when they thought she was still asleep.

"Can you just tell me _why_ do you spend so much time with him? I barely see you lately, and you're not with your ladies-"

"He doesn't look at me like you do," she tells him quietly, her eyes wet. "Like my ladies do. Everyone gets this look every time they lay eyes on me; like they're simply waiting for me to break!"

"What do you want me to say, Mary?" He walks to her, but she takes a step back. "If I've looked at you like that, I'm sorry. I am, but- I don't know what to do, or say. There's nothing I can do to make this easier for you and it kills me!

And they were also my children. I, too, have sons or daughters I will never meet and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. It kills me! And I know it's so much worse for you but you won't let me near you and I don't- I can't… Mary, I'm suffering too!"

"I know!" She screams, the sound ringing through the room on its despair. She knows how much he hurt, and she knows how she's pushed him away because she just couldn't let him in anymore, not into a grief that felt so private and under her skin for even him to be a part of. And there's the anger, the irrational, stupid anger she feels at everyone; at herself, at God, at _him_.

"You said nothing would happen," she sobs quietly then, "that we would both be all right." She meets his eyes, and the look in them is enough to send her to her knees, if he wasn't there already, holding her up. Like he always is.

"I'm sorry, I am so sorry," he cries against her shoulder, breaking even as he's the only thing keeping her upright.

"Me too," she whispers, holding on to him for dear life.

They make love afterwards, slow and sweet, more a comforting embrace than a chase for completion, but during the night she pushes away from him, seeking space even in sleep.

Daylight comes, and things don't change.

He goes away to put down some unrest in a far off village, insist in going himself when he could have sent some soldiers perhaps, and she doesn't wonder, she knows, what he wants is an opportunity to escape the castle walls and the grieving ghost he has for a wife.

He's been gone for merely a few days when she begins to suspect.

She forces herself to eat whatever it is her ladies push in front of her, but she seldom can keep all of it down, the morning sickness worse than ever. She becomes even quieter, answers only when spoken to, caught in her own head and only counting down the seconds until she feels that sharp pain once more and she loses their baby.

She's sitting in her windowsill one morning, when a knock shakes her out of her reverie, and then she hears the unforgiving steps of Catherine De' Medici as she walks in, an easy, fake, smile on her face.

"Mary, dear," she starts, "let's go outside. It's a beautiful day and it can't do you any good to be locked inside all the time."

She forces herself to answer, her voice scratchy from days unused.

"I don't feel well enough, Catherine," she says.

"And I have no qualms about dragging you out, my dear," it's Catherine's answer, and her face turns to the cold determination that she has always been familiar with.

The sun on her skin is something she realizes she's missed now; the warmth making her feel not quite as cold as always.

They sit on a stone bench overlooking the gardens, Catherine's face not betraying a single thought that crosses her mind.

"I know what you're going through," the Queen Mother says, and Mary finally finds it in herself to meet her eyes, but sees none of the pity she expected.

"Do you?"

"It was hard, watching that little bast-watching _Bash,_ grow stronger every day when I saw myself barren. Watch Henry beam at Diane and name ships after her. And then Clarissa happened, as you're well aware. A mistake, even if it was a hopeful one.

And then I got pregnant with Francis. My little golden boy. He was a darling thing when he was born, you know?" Catherine asks conversationally, a fond smile on her lips.

Mary can imagine, at least. She can remember what he looked like when they met, a small boy of 5 and she not that older, thin and quiet for his age, but with the brightest blue eyes. She'd hoped their child would have looked like him. She still harbors that hope deep inside of her.

She loves him, so deeply, and she is so sorry.

Catherine loses her reminiscing smile, the side of her she never sees hidden once more from view.

"I lost babies too, and by then, Henry and I were no more than amicable strangers, if that. I'd push him away time and time again with the fear of being barren, of being put aside and losing my position.

I remember every single one. A babe, right after Claude. I don't know what it would have been, it was too soon to tell. I remember laying there, amongst so much blood, and thinking of the little prince or princess that could have been."

She knows that feeling all too well, but Catherine had children already, Francis and his sisters, she couldn't have felt as alone as she did now, and so painfully empty.

"Little Louis was born dead, his little lips blue. And my last children. Twins. Twin girls. One was stillborn, and my little Victoria died a few days later."

What looks like a sheen of tears cover Catherine's eyes as she finishes relaying this, and the sight shocks her. She has never seen the strong older woman cry.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asks, but Catherine doesn't answer the question.

"I raised you for some time when you were small…..ah, I remember all the trouble you and Francis used to get in," she says fondly. "He would take the blame every time. He cared for you, even back then.

Mary, I see the woman you've become and- and despite our differences, I can see why my son loves you so much," Catherine lays her hand in her arm, "so let him.

You're pregnant again, aren't you?"

There's a small nod from her part.

"But I assume you already knew that, did you not?" Mary asks her.

"That's of no consequence." The older woman grabs her hand, forcing her to look at her. "Mary, don't ruin your marriage the same way I ruined mine."

She merely turns away to hide the treacherous tear that falls from her eye.

"Let's go back inside now, shall we?" Catherine stands up, pulling her after her, all traces of the understanding woman gone as she clasps her hand as if they were just discussing the weather, "I believe lunch is being served. We need you strong!"

Rains and floods delay their return and Francis comes back a full month later. She's showing now, and her dress barely conceals the bump underneath. He hurries to her as always, but stops a step or two short. He's tentative with her now, as if she could break by the very touch of his fingers. It is she who walks to him and pulls him for a kiss. He gives her the biggest smile she's seen in months.

They hurry back to their chambers as if they were still the free teenagers from a few years ago, and he pushes her against the door before she can say a word. He freezes when his hands drop to her waist and he feels the distinct bump that was not there before. His clear blue eyes meet hers with such wonder and hope in them that if she was made of crystal, she'd be only fragments in the floor now.

He takes her dress off, carefully, leaving her only in her shift; and then it becomes apparent what she's been keeping from him.

But there are no words, he just drops to his knees in front of her, his hands caressing her stomach with such gentleness tears spring to her eyes. He presses a kiss to it and she cant help but sink her hand in his curls, missing the tenderness they used to share and it's her fault they've lost.

She still forces herself to whisper some words when he pulls away.

"Francis don't….don't get attached."

"I don't think we should share a bed any longer," she forces herself to say one night, while she brushes her hair.

"Why? It's still big enough for the both of us, when you go on bed rest I suppose we'll have to stop but-"

"I think you should start sleeping elsewhere _now_," she insists, and his eyes flash with something like understanding, if not hurt.

"_Oh_….are you afraid I'll hurt the baby in my sleep?" he asks her, worry clouding over his eyes, "Because I could go back to my rooms tonight if-"

"No," she stops him, realizing he could be as easy to blame himself as she has been. "Its not that. I just…" she turns away from him. "I just don't want you to be there when it happens."

"When what happens?" he asks her, but he guesses by her countenance right away. She stares out the window, and on her reflection he can see the tear that makes its way down her face. He says nothing at all. He just lets her lean back on his chest and holds her.

"I want you to know, whatever happens, that I love you" he tells her before kissing her neck, repeating the words she said to him so much time ago. "I love you Mary, so much; and I already love this baby more than my own life." He tells her, caressing her stomach, "I know you're scared, but let yourself, too." She covers his hand with her own.

It's during a meeting in the maps room, of all places. Their counselors are arguing amongst themselves when she feels it, and at once commands them to leave in a voice so strong the men only sneak a quick look at Francis and upon his nodding, scatter outside.

"Mary, what is it?" Francis hurries to her side, but it's Catherine her eyes search for, desperate.

"It's happening again, I can feel it," she tells her desperately, her hands clutching her stomach.

"Francis get her a chair!" she demands at once, "tell me , where's the pain?"

"It's not…It's not pain, it's just-strange, it's different, something's wrong," she tells her, her eyes begging for help, her brow twisted.

"Oh! Darling, look at me," Catherine tells her, holding her hands, "does it feel much like flutters?" she asks, and upon Mary's nodding a smile graces her features.

"Francis, she's all right. The baby's quickened!" He tells Francis, who worriedly kneels by his wife's side, but Mary doesn't seem to hear her at all. "Hey," she grabs her daughter in law gently by the chin, making her look straight at her. "It's all right, child. You're feeling your baby move."

"Did you just push me?" he asks Mary one night, turning on his side to look at her.

"No…" she tells him, confused, and then a curious smile and laughter leave her lips. "It seems our child thinks you're too close to his mother."

Francis smiles with wonder as well, hardly believing that the strong tap he felt on his back could have been his unborn son kicking inside his mother.

He sits up, kneeling down reverently to kiss his Mary's protruding stomach. He kisses her ever so softly before looking up at Mary.

"Well, he'll have to learn to share," he says jokingly, "if I recall correctly, I had you first."

She goes in bed rest a few weeks before the physicians have calculated the baby is supposed to come, and she welcomes the rest-at first. But Francis brings her books, and her instruments, and needles and thread, and whatever she might want to keep herself entertained while she waits for the time to come. He's there every single day.

"I hate to leave you alone here," he tells her, once her tired eyes start closing on their own.

"There was a time I used to sleep alone, you know?" she asks him teasingly, truth being that she, too, hates to watch him leave.

"I can't remember what it was like not having you next to me," he tells her, taking her hand and tracing careful circles on the back of it.

"I can't either," she agrees.

"How are you feeling?"

"Tired, heavy, sore… my breasts feel as though they will burst," she tells him, not minding a bit telling about the less graceful aspects of pregnancy.

He nods with a chuckle, caressing her cheek.

"How are_ you_ feeling?" he asks again, staring intently at her.

She swallows before speaking, looking away from the intensity of his gaze.

"Sometimes he goes to sleep, and I'm afraid he won't wake up and I won't feel him again. That he'll have died inside of me," she confides Francis, the worry fading a little as she shares it with him. "But then I feel him moving again," she says, with a small smile.

"I can't wait to meet him-or her," he tells her, his hand sliding from her face to land on her large belly.

"He can hear you," she tells him, smiling at his surprised look.

"Are you…are you sure?"

She nods excitedly.

"I sing to him, sometimes; when he's moving too much. And I feel him settle and calm. And it startles him, when the servants let the door slam on their way out. I feel him jump."

Not a second later his beard is tickling her through her thin nightgown, as he kneels in front of her, his mouth against her stomach.

"Hello there, this is your father." She laughs at his tone, she can't help it. He tickles under her armpits suddenly and she shrieks and trashes as she laughs.

"Stop!" she wheezes out.

"Did I hurt you?" he asks at once.

"Your son is sitting on my bladder. I'm going to pee myself," she says breathlessly, and then they are both laughing.

It's a little while later, once she's lying down, propped up on pillows, and he's holding himself up with his arm and running his hands over her body, that he tries talking to the baby again.

So softly that she can barely feel the ghost of his breath over her abdomen, he whispers "I love you."

She grabs the sheets tied to the bed so hard her knuckles turn white.

"Push Your Grace!"

Mary feels as though she's being ripped in two, the pain unbearably strong, the room stiflingly hot, and Kenna's and Greer's encouraging whispers doing nothing for her as she hears the midwife's booming voice from between her legs.

She's so dizzy by the pain and her yell that she hardly notices the ruckus going on by the door and then Francis is by her side telling her that it's all right.

"You're here," she says softly, a brief respite between contractions allowing him to look at him.

"I'm here," he affirms, gently disentangling her stiff fingers from the sheet and holding her hand, which she notes with satisfaction, the midwife is none too pleased about. "You're doing great," he says, and then she's screaming again.

"Your grace, I can see the head," the woman calls out to her, "push!"

She squeezes Francis hand and does so with a strength she hadn't thought she had left, and slumps back against the pillows once the moment is over, the baby having left her.

"It's a boy!" the midwife announces, for the first time showing kindness as she holds the baby with care.

"A boy…" Mary whispers, a different sort of tears cascading down her face. And then something doesn't feel right. The room is far too quiet, the only sound the midwife leaning over the baby to clean him.

"Francis," she squeezes his hand tighter "Francis, why isn't he crying?" she asks desperately, a horrible feeling coming over her, willing her to move but the pain won't let her, moving her to grasp for her child because she feels as though he's been taken away.

Francis can't answer because then the most beautiful sound she's ever heard fills the room.

The high pitch wail of a newborn child, their child.

The midwife lays the baby down on her stomach, and the most beautiful blue eyes look up at her, opening slowly after they've been scrunched up in a displeased cry.

"Look at him," she whispers to Francis, and then feels his kiss upon her brow. The midwife takes the baby away from her lap to clean him further and cut the cord, and she's never been so nervous in her life.

"I want him," she says faintly, completely exhausted; angry at herself for being so weak at the moment.

"They're cleaning him and wrapping him up," Francis tells her, holding her hands, but she doesn't care, she wants her child now and the midwife and her girls are obstructing the view of her boy to her.

"Your majesty," the woman finally says, handing a little screaming bundle to Francis, who lets go of her to receive their son.

"Hello," he whispers, and tears cloud his eyes. "Your maman has waited for so long to meet you."

Her heart almost stops as Francis approaches their baby, their little soncrying in his arms.

She takes him in her arms and she swears that nothing has ever felt so right. He's warm and heavy and here, and only one thought goes through her head as she holds her newborn: _You're mine, mine, and no one can take you away._

"Shhh," her chest feel tight, as though her heart has expanded and filled it completely.

"Why does he keep crying?" she asks, looking up at the midwife –who has dropped any pretense of sternness.

"He must be hungry, your Grace," she explains gently, "do not fret, the wet-nurse is right outside-"

"No," she says right away, slightly panicked, the picture of another woman nurturing her son sending unexplainable pain through her body, "no,I will care for him myself."

At the midwife's surprised look, she shyly asks, "if you could show me…"

"Of course, your majesty," the midwife walks to her.

"Mary," Francis gets her attention, nodding towards the door. "Do you want me to-"

"No, of course not."

She lowers her shift enough to free her breast, and brings her baby boy closer.

"Support his head while he finds a comfortable position," the midwife instructs, and it feels a little odd to have someone other than her husband touch her but as she remembers that she has been far more exposed to the old lady today than she cares for, and his baby boy quiets down his wails, the thought fades. A gasp leaves her when he latches on and starts suckling.

"There you go," the woman clasps her hands together, satisfied.

"There, that's better, isn't it?" she coos to her child without any thought at all, she looks up to find Francis watching them as though entranced, and the midwife awaiting further orders, everyone else in the room having vacated it sometime. "Thank you, you may leave," she says kindly, every order the old woman has shouted forgotten as she helped to bring her boy into the world.

She curtsies to them both, "I shall return later to finish tending to her Grace."

Mary caresses the faint wisps of fair hair on the baby's head as he eats, and his eyes close after a few moments, his little closed fist lying on her chest.

She looks up at Francis, noting the tears that has run down his cheeks, and whispers like she's telling him a secret.

"Francis, he has your hair." The tuff of hair on the baby's head has dried to a pale blond color.

Francis sits down on the bed, and she falls back on his embrace, feeling as though she could weep with joy. Her husband at her side, her son at her breast.

"Look at him. I can't believe it."

"I can." He kisses her forehead, being careful not to jostle their son. "You deserve nothing more."

She has a nursery set up in their chambers.

Mary and Francis are surely the most battered looking King and Queen France has ever had, but they wouldn't trade the dark smudges under the eyes or the constant yawning for anything in the world.

"James will have your eyes. They're getting darker every day," Francis mentions to her one night, after their boy has been laid down to sleep.

"And your hair color, definitely," she retorts, "but not curls it seems."

"A blend of us both," he tells her, treading his arms around her waist.

She smiles, even though the words trigger a heart-breaking memory from that night so long ago, because another one returns as well.

Mary lays a gentle hand on the back of her sleeping baby boy and settles back in her husband's arms.

They are her light.


End file.
